The following discussion of the background to the invention is intended to facilitate an understanding of the present invention only. It should be appreciated that the discussion is not an acknowledgement or admission that any of the material referred to was published, known or part of the common general knowledge of the person skilled in the art in any jurisdiction as at the priority date of the invention.
A mobile user using known SMS or MMS system to send an electronic message typically has no control of when the receiver receives the message. The message is typically received real time unless there is unexpected network congestion. While most people demand real-time messaging under many situations, there are times where such real-time delivery is undesirable, e.g. when the message is sent very early or late in the day.
Further, most known congestion control routing algorithms are reactive, i.e. they are triggered on demand, such as when main route congestion is detected. There is thus no pre-emptive scheduled congestion control routing algorithm. On the other hand, most scheduled data transmission does not include congestion control.
In addition, while most congestion control routing algorithms are typically node based, i.e. the congestion control algorithm focuses on each network node activity; the routing algorithms do not usually factor in the terminal destination, i.e. recipient device. In a base-station based wireless telecommunication network environment, for instance, while routing is performed from end-to-end, congestion control focuses on the nodes to avoid congestion and assumes that the last leg delivery will be straightforward. Two limitations associated with such congestion control algorithms are:
a. When large amounts of data are to be delivered to the recipient device, current routing algorithms will allow delivery of data when there is no congestion detected on the network. However, delivery of large amounts of data could adversely affect the performance of the recipient device, despite the increasingly powerful processors available today. This can result in an unpleasant user experience.
b. Current routing algorithms are not concerned with the last leg of delivery, hence even if the recipient device is in active use (i.e. receiving or transmitting electronic content); current routing algorithms continue to effect delivery. This can also result in an unpleasant user experience.
While there are arguably routing algorithms which consider the activity level on the recipient devices, such routing algorithms typically adopt a marking and dropping of data packets when congestion is detected (i.e. all or nothing approach).
Although there are known routing system which schedule transmission of data packets at predetermined times, these routing systems do not take into consideration congestion levels of the network and size of the data packets.
The present invention seeks to alleviate or reduce the above mentioned drawbacks.